Democratic Governance

As Sri Lanka moves forward with development, supporting responsive governance has become one of the key areas of focus. The Government has highlighted in its 10 year development agenda the priority of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the public sector and its ability to deliver quality services to its citizens. We support the Government to strengthen national institutions to respond to the needs of its citizens. Key areas of our work include strengthening local democratic dialogue processes and mechanisms that enable citizens to hold government institutions accountable, tackling corruption and protecting human rights through interventions at the national policy and regional level and ensuring access to judicial services and for vulnerable groups.

Our Goals

UNDP will continue to support responsive governance, strengthening the capacities of local governance institutions, such as district and provincial secretariats and provincial councils so that they are able to deliver quality services efficiently and transparently and in an accountable fashion. In addition, we work towards strengthening access to justice and addressing pressing human rights concerns of the most disadvantaged groups, including women-headed households, youth, plantation sector workers and conflict-affected communities. more

Strengthening access to justice

In recent years, UNDP has supported a series of highly specialized clinics focused on facilitating Sri Lankan refugee families returning from India to obtain citizenship for their children born overseas. Citizenship is necessary for entry into school, and later in life for obtaining a National Identity Card. It provides children with increased mobility and access to servicest

Our Stories

As a former child soldier with the LTTE, Kanthi’s dream of being able to return to school recently came true when a mobile documentation service in her area issued her with a replacement birth certificate, a document critical for school admission and exam enrollment. Meanwhile, neighbours in her village, Raman and Sidhamani, were able to register their marriage after 40 years, an important step to facilitate inheritance claims one day in the future.more

A key policy instrument that also details the available grievance redress mechanisms, the Citizen’s Charter promotes transparency and accountability in a government administration. Today, the Citizen’s Charter has helped 14,022 Grama Niladhari offices across the island as well as 108 Divisional Secretariats and 8 District Secretariats in the Eastern, Southern and Uva provinces to achieve just this as they take a crucial step forward in improving public service delivery. more

Projects and Initiatives

The Equal Access to Justice Project – Phase II was developed to deepen and orient the activities of Phase I of the Equal Access to Justice Project within a conflict prevention framework, while also continuing the shift of the primary focus to the East and North, as well as to the estate sector, and addressing trust/confidence-building, gender-equity, peaceful conflict resolution and mediation. more

UNDP in Sri Lanka

UNDP and Sri Lanka: Partners for a New Era

As UNDP Sri Lanka moves into a new programme cycle in 2013, this publication captures the key achievements and way forward

National Human Development Report 2012

Titled, ‘Bridging Regional Disparities for Human Development’, the 2012 Sri Lanka Human Development Report, assesses the health, education, employment and governance sectors, and puts forth a set of policy recommendations to help overcome gaps